The mental health of working women and the impact of work on their families are important issues in current research. Because research on important social issues, particularly on exploited minorities, often reflects the social and cultural values of the researcher rather than scientific procedure, and because ideas about women's sex roles are undergoing change, it is important to look at the development of health research about women workers in cultural context. Women's work became a research problem with the move from farm to urban factory, for to work outside, rather than inside, the home represented a break with traditional roles. Early health research on women workers, starting about 1870, reflected values concerning women's physical and mental weakness, supported occupational segregation, and provided a "scientific" rationale for protective labor legislation limiting women's hours and types of employment. Current research focuses on the mental and family health of women workers, particularly effects of the mother's work on children. Some present research reflects a new set of values about equal employment opportunity, while some continues to incorporate earlier values. According to Gunnar Myrdal's American Dilemma, no social or human science research on important social issues is completely value-free. An examination of the cultural biases affecting past research on women urban workers could help to illuminate underlying values in current research, as well as re-examining the original health research basis for legislation now under attack, such as the protective labor laws.